The Cybercab Is Almost Here. Now Comes the Hard Part
The Cybercab Is Almost Here. Now Comes the Hard Part
Cybercab 即将到来，真正的挑战才刚刚开始
Matte gold, sloped, and steering-wheel-free, the Tesla Cybercab seems designed to catch the eyes of looky-loos. Now rubberneckers may have more opportunities: Tesla is set to host an event on Thursday at its Austin, Texas, headquarters to debut the Cybercab.
哑光金色的车身、倾斜的线条，再加上没有方向盘的设计，特斯拉 Cybercab 的外观似乎就是为了吸引路人的目光而打造的。现在，这些“回头客”们将有更多机会一睹真容：特斯拉定于周四在其位于德克萨斯州奥斯汀的总部举办一场活动，正式发布 Cybercab。
Tesla first rolled out a prototype Cybercab at a flashy event on the Warner Bros. lot in 2024. This week’s unveiling will likely mark the vehicle’s official introduction to the electric-auto maker’s small ride-hail service. It has operated a pilot program in Austin since last summer, and has since expanded to a handful of other cities in Texas and Florida, with permits to launch in Arizona and Nevada. (A “robotaxi” service in the San Francisco Bay Area is not legally permitted to operate without drivers behind the wheel.) Before the event, Tesla added 51 Cybercabs to its fleet of vehicles registered to operate in Texas (263 Model Ys are also registered).
特斯拉曾于 2024 年在华纳兄弟制片厂的一场盛大活动中首次展示了 Cybercab 原型车。本周的发布会很可能标志着该车型正式加入这家电动汽车制造商的小型网约车服务。自去年夏天以来，特斯拉一直在奥斯汀运营试点项目，此后已扩展到德克萨斯州和佛罗里达州的其他几个城市，并获得了在亚利桑那州和内华达州启动运营的许可。（旧金山湾区的“自动驾驶出租车”服务目前在法律上尚不允许在没有驾驶员的情况下运行。）在活动前夕，特斯拉将其在德克萨斯州注册运营的车队增加了 51 辆 Cybercab（此前已注册了 263 辆 Model Y）。
“The streets won’t be the same anymore,” Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of AI software, posted last month on X. When an X user asked whether the Cybercabs would “flood Austin,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with his characteristic moth-to-the-flame tendencies toward hyperbole, responded with a simple “Yes.”
“街道将不再是原来的样子了，”特斯拉人工智能软件主管 Ashok Elluswamy 上个月在 X 上发帖称。当一位 X 用户询问 Cybercab 是否会“淹没奥斯汀”时，特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）以其标志性的夸张风格简单地回复了一个“是的”。
Details on the event are still scant, and the basic business model for the Cybercab is in question—are the vehicles just for ride-hail operations, or meant to be sold to individual drivers? States regulate autonomous vehicles, and some tightly control permits and data collection. However, Musk still insisted this year that Tesla will sell Cybercabs directly to consumers before the end of 2026.
目前关于此次活动的细节仍然很少，Cybercab 的基本商业模式也存在疑问——这些车辆是仅用于网约车运营，还是打算卖给个人驾驶员？各州对自动驾驶汽车都有监管，一些州对许可证和数据收集的控制非常严格。然而，马斯克今年仍坚持表示，特斯拉将在 2026 年底前直接向消费者销售 Cybercab。
Either way, the physical Cybercab slated to be shown off in Austin on Thursday may be the easiest lift in Tesla’s deeply ambitious plan to shift from a company that builds cars to one entirely focused on autonomous vehicles and robotics. Manufacturing a car isn’t easy. But neither is running a functional autonomous vehicle service, nor building the software to power it. Tesla hasn’t yet proven that it can do either at scale.
无论如何，周四在奥斯汀展示的实体 Cybercab 可能只是特斯拉宏大计划中最容易实现的一步。特斯拉正试图从一家制造汽车的公司转型为一家完全专注于自动驾驶汽车和机器人的公司。制造汽车并不容易，但运营一套功能完善的自动驾驶服务，以及构建驱动它的软件同样困难。特斯拉尚未证明自己能够大规模实现这两者。
“Longer term, the software is the most important piece,” says Seth Goldstein, a senior equity analyst for Morningstar who follows Tesla. “This is a very important step, to put the Cybercab in production, but ultimately, it only matters if the software can allow a car to navigate safely.”
“从长远来看，软件才是最重要的部分，”晨星公司（Morningstar）关注特斯拉的资深股票分析师 Seth Goldstein 表示。“将 Cybercab 投入生产是非常重要的一步，但归根结底，只有当软件能够让汽车安全行驶时，这一切才有意义。”
Musk has promised for nearly a decade that the Teslas sold to everyday consumers are just a software update away from driverless capabilities, but that has yet to come true. (Musk admitted earlier this year that some vehicles will need a hardware upgrade to get the capability.) The company’s critical thesis is that a car can drive on complicated, chaotic public roads with only inexpensive cameras, which could allow it to deploy self-driving robots much more cheaply than the competition. Waymo, the US industry leader, took a direct swipe at Tesla last month, writing in a blog post that “cameras are incredible, but they aren’t enough.” Waymo’s more expensive setup uses lidar and radar along with cameras.
马斯克近十年来一直承诺，卖给普通消费者的特斯拉汽车只需一次软件更新就能实现无人驾驶功能，但这至今尚未实现。（马斯克今年早些时候承认，一些车辆需要进行硬件升级才能获得该能力。）该公司的核心论点是，汽车仅靠廉价的摄像头就能在复杂、混乱的公共道路上行驶，这使其能够比竞争对手更低成本地部署自动驾驶机器人。美国行业领头羊 Waymo 上个月直接抨击了特斯拉，在博客文章中写道：“摄像头固然出色，但还不够。”Waymo 更昂贵的方案除了摄像头外，还使用了激光雷达和雷达。
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) product, available to drivers for a $99 monthly fee, currently does many driving tasks, including changing lanes and stopping at red lights. But the company warns in its manuals that drivers must pay attention and be ready to intervene at all times. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US’s top auto safety regulator, opened an investigation into crashes involving FSD in 2024 following concerns that the system falters in situations with poor visibility. That probe is ongoing.
特斯拉的“全自动驾驶（监督版）”（FSD）产品目前以每月 99 美元的价格向驾驶员提供，可以执行许多驾驶任务，包括变道和在红灯前停车。但该公司在手册中警告称，驾驶员必须时刻保持注意力并准备好随时介入。美国最高汽车安全监管机构——美国国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA）在 2024 年对涉及 FSD 的事故展开了调查，此前有担忧称该系统在能见度较差的情况下会失灵。该调查目前仍在进行中。
Tesla began testing its steering-wheel- and pedal-free Cybercab on Austin streets in late June 2026. Based on videos posted online, much of the testing occurs with a safety monitor in the front passenger seat, ready to intervene if something goes wrong.
特斯拉于 2026 年 6 月下旬开始在奥斯汀街头测试其没有方向盘和踏板的 Cybercab。根据网上发布的视频，大部分测试都有安全员坐在副驾驶座位上，准备在出现问题时进行干预。
Success in the robotaxi game also has a lot to do with balance sheets and spending. “These AV companies are spending so much money getting this technology in place, but in order to scale up the business, the economics come down to utilization,” says J. D. Alexander, the founder of AVFleetTech, a consultancy focused on AV fleet operations.
在自动驾驶出租车领域的成功也与资产负债表和支出密切相关。“这些自动驾驶公司投入了巨额资金来完善这项技术，但为了扩大业务规模，经济效益最终取决于利用率，”专注于自动驾驶车队运营的咨询公司 AVFleetTech 的创始人 J. D. Alexander 表示。
Companies need to wring all they can out of their investments on wheels, making sure their vehicles are on the road and picking up passengers as much as possible. Efficiency comes down to how, when, and where the robots get charged, cleaned, and fixed—and making sure that the humans hired to do those things are well trained and motivated.
公司需要从其车辆投资中榨取每一分价值，确保车辆尽可能多地在路上行驶并接载乘客。效率取决于机器人如何、何时以及在何处进行充电、清洁和维修，并确保受雇执行这些任务的人员训练有素且充满动力。
The nitty-gritty operations are complicated enough that other firms with robotaxi services and ambitions have partnered with several other companies to get it done. In Dallas, the rental company Avis manages fleet logistics, maintenance, charging, and depots for Waymo; Hertz is slated to do the same for Uber self-driving cars. Waymo also works with the fleet manager Moove in Arizona, Florida, and, soon, London, and with Lyft’s Flexdrive service in Nashville.
这些繁琐的运营工作非常复杂，以至于其他拥有自动驾驶出租车服务和雄心的公司都通过与其他多家公司合作来完成。在达拉斯，租赁公司 Avis 为 Waymo 管理车队物流、维护、充电和车库；Hertz 也计划为 Uber 的自动驾驶汽车提供同样的服务。Waymo 还与亚利桑那州、佛罗里达州以及即将进入的伦敦的车队管理公司 Moove 合作，并与纳什维尔的 Lyft Flexdrive 服务开展了合作。
Tesla likes to do everything on its own, and it has clearly started to think about where and how it wants to stage its robotaxis. In new markets, Cybercabs might first operate out of Tesla service centers, where employees already repair and clean its electric cars. Tesla is tinkering with the cleaning part too. A Texas state architectural permit application the company filed in June 2025 indicated that the company’s main robotaxi hub would have a “cleaning robot” on the premises. However, Tesla hasn’t released details on that tech beyond a promotional video posted last year.
特斯拉喜欢凡事亲力亲为，而且显然已经开始考虑在哪里以及如何部署其自动驾驶出租车。在新的市场中，Cybercab 可能首先从特斯拉服务中心运营，那里的员工已经具备维修和清洁电动汽车的能力。特斯拉也在改进清洁环节。该公司于 2025 年 6 月提交的一份德克萨斯州建筑许可申请显示，其主要的自动驾驶出租车中心将配备“清洁机器人”。然而，除了去年发布的一段宣传视频外，特斯拉尚未公布有关该技术的详细信息。
The physical Cybercab, then, is just a start. As more of the gilded cars “flood” the streets, it should be easy to watch them go.
因此，实体 Cybercab 仅仅是一个开始。随着更多这种金色的汽车“淹没”街道，我们拭目以待。